Is Sarah Palin using code words to slam gay journalist Michael Joseph Gross, a frequent Advocate contributor who wrote the much-buzzed-about profile of the former vice presidential nominee in this month’s Vanity Fair?

Palin didn’t mention Gross by name while talking Thursday on Sean Hannity’s WABC radio show, but she seemed to be referring to the article — and pointedly used emasculating words that have long been used as euphemisms for homosexuality — when she called reporters who publish “rumors” about her “impotent,” “limp,” and “gutless.”

“I don't read some of it because I know that those who are impotent and limp and gutless, and then they go on, they're anonymous, they're sources that are anonymous, and impotent, limp, and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references,” Palin said.

“You know, it just slays me because it's so absolutely clear what the state of yellow journalism is today that they would take these anonymous sources as fact. So when a story especially is filled with those and we know it's bogus, and we're not going to read it.”

Gross defended the article on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, saying most of his sources would only speak with him anonymously because they’re “terrified of retribution.”

“There is a string of people going all the way back in her life, all the way back in her career, who have been so abused so horrifically by her, and they’re just terrified of retribution,” Gross said. “They’ve seen her take revenge on people before, and they’re so broken, they’re so stepped on, they’re so beaten down, they don’t want to take the risk of speaking out.”